Page 31 of A Happy Catastrophe

I don’t answer him, so he sends one of his long legs over to my side of the bed and pokes me with his big toe.

“Come on,” he says. “Seriously. When is Tessa coming back for her so we can resume our lives?”

“I know you’re joking about this, and I don’t think it’s funny.”

He laughs. “I am so not joking. This is everything I outlined in advance that was going to be hard about parenthood. Teacher conferences. School projects. Kids’ stares. The only thing I left out was that I didn’t know about how a kid would want to paint a room and in the process would destroy the finish on the parquet wood floor in at least two rooms and a hallway. That I didn’t anticipate.”

“First of all, the finish is not destroyed. I mopped up the paint. And you, my good man, haven’t had to go to even one school conference. And I think having Fritzie—who, just as a reminder, is your daughter—is opening our lives up.”

“Perhaps our lives were just fine half-closed the way they were.” He comes over to my side of the bed and nuzzles me, trying to get me to smile. “Come on. You know this is a hell of a thing we’re involved in here. It’s astonishing that people live their lives this way. Look at us. We are wrecks of our former selves, and I do not think we’re even halfway done. And please don’t tell me again about life’s great mystery being laid out before me.”

“Halfway done! You think we’re halfway done? This is October, Patrick. October.”

He pretends to look shocked. “So you’re saying this is going to be a lot longer.”

I stare at him. I mean, I know this is his idea of humor, but it makes me mad.

“Patrick, this is possibly not the best time to bring this up,” I say, “but I am actually the one doing nine-tenths of the work around here—both the emotional work and the physical work. So if anyone has the right of complainership, it’s me.”

“Absolutely. I bow to your right of complainership. Please. Go ahead. Complain away. I would love to hear any complaints you have about our current lifestyle.”

“Yes, well, I’m not going to complain, because this is the life I expected to have. This life—with a little girl who needs us, who is brave and funny and smart and heading off every day into a world she didn’t ask for, without her mother—and, well, I find that incredibly moving.”

“It’s very moving. And in fact, it would make a fine documentary someday. But that being said, it’s a hell of a lot of unplanned work. Look at us. We’re both exhausted, and now we’re arguing when in the old days, we could be making love or reading or planning our peaceful tomorrows. Instead we spend all our spare oxygen talking about who made her lunch and did she do her homework, and why isn’t she asleep yet, and . . .”

“Patrick.”

“. . . and who’s going to be home when, and what if . . .”

“Patrick.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re doing, and I’m just putting you on notice that I still want a baby. And, as I may have mentioned, I am thirty-three, which is not all that young when it comes to fertility. And Fritzie is doing well so I think it’s time we started trying on purpose.”

He slowly slides off the bed onto the floor, as though he’s oozing life force.

“Get back up on the bed.”

“I have died.”

“No, hear me out. I think parenthood is easier when you start with a brand-new one and work your way up.”

“That is a theory that has not been proven.”

I get up on my knees on the mattress and stare down at him. He’s sitting on the floor facing away from me, slumped against the bed. “No, no. Patrick, listen. We’ll already know so much about kids from being Fritzie’s parents, that when we have a baby, there won’t be any surprises.”

“There are always surprises,” he says. “This conversation right here is a big surprise actually.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be. We’ve had it before.”

“Yes, but we agreed to wait awhile. Remember that? Your Honor, may I treat the witness as hostile while we review the tapes? You, Marnie MacGraw, said you wanted a baby. I said I didn’t see myself as a father. You said I should think about it. We had sex, during which the condom mysteriously and ‘accidentally’ broke—” He crooks his fingers in the air.

“Do not air-quote the word ‘accidentally.’ You know as well as I do that—”

“May I proceed, Your Honor? Later that week, we find out we’re going to be raising a child for a year in circumstances that can only be described as surprising and completely out of left field and not of my choosing. But okay. One year. Which brings me back to my original question: Is the year up yet?”

“Yes, the condom broke. But it didn’t result in pregnancy, and then you said we could try again, so I think in view of the fact that I am close to being in my midthirties and you have agreed to try to have a child, that legally I am entitled to as many chances as possible. I want to buy a thermometer and start doing the charting of ovulation and all that.”

“You would say this to a man who is currently lying on the floor of your bedroom, gasping for his life?”

“All I am asking is that you get yourself up on the bed and take your clothes off.”

“Why are you so bossy?”

“Because I love you, and I am not getting any younger.”

“You! You are killing me.”

But he scrambles up onto the bed anyway, and I slather him all over with love, and by the time we’re ready for sleep, I do not think he is even close to dying.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PATRICK

It’s November, the month that Patrick thinks should include a trigger warning on the calendar page.

November was the month he was released back into the world after his hospitalizations from the fire, and each year around the anniversary of that, there is always a morning when he awakens to find the world has turned cobwebby and dusty. When he can’t lift his head. The sharp smell of autumn, the particular slant of light as it comes through the windows, and the shortening of daylight settle once again into his very bones. He thinks he can even still smell the acrid odor of the smoke. His cells know. They are keeping records.

This year, on the anniversary morning, as every morning, he makes a mug of coffee and goes into his studio. Roy, who has decided to live in there full-time since life has gotten so busy in the main part of the house, greets him disdainfully like the fellow refugee/traitor he is. Roy sits majestically on top of the pile of unused canvases, licking his nether regions as though he’s in his own private spa and the weak little sunbeam he is occupying was designed for him alone. Indeed, this studio is the place where both he and Patrick can seize even the smallest vestige of their previous life.

More and more, this is the moment Patrick waits for each day, this time of entering the studio, shutting out the world, seeking the seductive dark comfort of his pain. But today there is no comfort anywhere. He knows he’s not pulling his weight in the household. He sees Marnie looking at him, measuring how much more she’s doing than he is for Fritzie. She seems made for the mad dash of domesticity, while he feels lumbering and slow. He makes Fritzie’s breakfast each morning, and he starts the coffeepot—and today, heroically, he was the one to locate her missing shoe, which Bedford had taken into the living room and hidden under the couch.

’t answer him, so he sends one of his long legs over to my side of the bed and pokes me with his big toe.

“Come on,” he says. “Seriously. When is Tessa coming back for her so we can resume our lives?”

“I know you’re joking about this, and I don’t think it’s funny.”

He laughs. “I am so not joking. This is everything I outlined in advance that was going to be hard about parenthood. Teacher conferences. School projects. Kids’ stares. The only thing I left out was that I didn’t know about how a kid would want to paint a room and in the process would destroy the finish on the parquet wood floor in at least two rooms and a hallway. That I didn’t anticipate.”

“First of all, the finish is not destroyed. I mopped up the paint. And you, my good man, haven’t had to go to even one school conference. And I think having Fritzie—who, just as a reminder, is your daughter—is opening our lives up.”

“Perhaps our lives were just fine half-closed the way they were.” He comes over to my side of the bed and nuzzles me, trying to get me to smile. “Come on. You know this is a hell of a thing we’re involved in here. It’s astonishing that people live their lives this way. Look at us. We are wrecks of our former selves, and I do not think we’re even halfway done. And please don’t tell me again about life’s great mystery being laid out before me.”

“Halfway done! You think we’re halfway done? This is October, Patrick. October.”

He pretends to look shocked. “So you’re saying this is going to be a lot longer.”

I stare at him. I mean, I know this is his idea of humor, but it makes me mad.

“Patrick, this is possibly not the best time to bring this up,” I say, “but I am actually the one doing nine-tenths of the work around here—both the emotional work and the physical work. So if anyone has the right of complainership, it’s me.”

“Absolutely. I bow to your right of complainership. Please. Go ahead. Complain away. I would love to hear any complaints you have about our current lifestyle.”

“Yes, well, I’m not going to complain, because this is the life I expected to have. This life—with a little girl who needs us, who is brave and funny and smart and heading off every day into a world she didn’t ask for, without her mother—and, well, I find that incredibly moving.”

“It’s very moving. And in fact, it would make a fine documentary someday. But that being said, it’s a hell of a lot of unplanned work. Look at us. We’re both exhausted, and now we’re arguing when in the old days, we could be making love or reading or planning our peaceful tomorrows. Instead we spend all our spare oxygen talking about who made her lunch and did she do her homework, and why isn’t she asleep yet, and . . .”

“Patrick.”

“. . . and who’s going to be home when, and what if . . .”

“Patrick.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re doing, and I’m just putting you on notice that I still want a baby. And, as I may have mentioned, I am thirty-three, which is not all that young when it comes to fertility. And Fritzie is doing well so I think it’s time we started trying on purpose.”

He slowly slides off the bed onto the floor, as though he’s oozing life force.

“Get back up on the bed.”

“I have died.”

“No, hear me out. I think parenthood is easier when you start with a brand-new one and work your way up.”

“That is a theory that has not been proven.”

I get up on my knees on the mattress and stare down at him. He’s sitting on the floor facing away from me, slumped against the bed. “No, no. Patrick, listen. We’ll already know so much about kids from being Fritzie’s parents, that when we have a baby, there won’t be any surprises.”

“There are always surprises,” he says. “This conversation right here is a big surprise actually.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be. We’ve had it before.”

“Yes, but we agreed to wait awhile. Remember that? Your Honor, may I treat the witness as hostile while we review the tapes? You, Marnie MacGraw, said you wanted a baby. I said I didn’t see myself as a father. You said I should think about it. We had sex, during which the condom mysteriously and ‘accidentally’ broke—” He crooks his fingers in the air.

“Do not air-quote the word ‘accidentally.’ You know as well as I do that—”

“May I proceed, Your Honor? Later that week, we find out we’re going to be raising a child for a year in circumstances that can only be described as surprising and completely out of left field and not of my choosing. But okay. One year. Which brings me back to my original question: Is the year up yet?”

“Yes, the condom broke. But it didn’t result in pregnancy, and then you said we could try again, so I think in view of the fact that I am close to being in my midthirties and you have agreed to try to have a child, that legally I am entitled to as many chances as possible. I want to buy a thermometer and start doing the charting of ovulation and all that.”

“You would say this to a man who is currently lying on the floor of your bedroom, gasping for his life?”

“All I am asking is that you get yourself up on the bed and take your clothes off.”

“Why are you so bossy?”

“Because I love you, and I am not getting any younger.”

“You! You are killing me.”

But he scrambles up onto the bed anyway, and I slather him all over with love, and by the time we’re ready for sleep, I do not think he is even close to dying.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PATRICK

It’s November, the month that Patrick thinks should include a trigger warning on the calendar page.

November was the month he was released back into the world after his hospitalizations from the fire, and each year around the anniversary of that, there is always a morning when he awakens to find the world has turned cobwebby and dusty. When he can’t lift his head. The sharp smell of autumn, the particular slant of light as it comes through the windows, and the shortening of daylight settle once again into his very bones. He thinks he can even still smell the acrid odor of the smoke. His cells know. They are keeping records.

This year, on the anniversary morning, as every morning, he makes a mug of coffee and goes into his studio. Roy, who has decided to live in there full-time since life has gotten so busy in the main part of the house, greets him disdainfully like the fellow refugee/traitor he is. Roy sits majestically on top of the pile of unused canvases, licking his nether regions as though he’s in his own private spa and the weak little sunbeam he is occupying was designed for him alone. Indeed, this studio is the place where both he and Patrick can seize even the smallest vestige of their previous life.

More and more, this is the moment Patrick waits for each day, this time of entering the studio, shutting out the world, seeking the seductive dark comfort of his pain. But today there is no comfort anywhere. He knows he’s not pulling his weight in the household. He sees Marnie looking at him, measuring how much more she’s doing than he is for Fritzie. She seems made for the mad dash of domesticity, while he feels lumbering and slow. He makes Fritzie’s breakfast each morning, and he starts the coffeepot—and today, heroically, he was the one to locate her missing shoe, which Bedford had taken into the living room and hidden under the couch.

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